Today we’re looking at the history behind one of our long standing Coustics Club favourites, Bryan Adams’ classic rock hit, ‘Summer Of 69’. You probably all know what I'm going to tell you, but it got past the censors at the time, so...
Somewhat weirdly, the video seems to feature the English actress, Lysette Anthony, who you might recognise from 'Auf Weidersehen Pet', 'Three Up, Two Down' and 'Hollyoaks'.....nevermind!
‘Summer Of 69’ was released in 1985 as part of the album ‘Reckless’, which as it happens, is the first LP I ever owned. Not because I was in any way music savvy, but because it was sent to me by an older, Canadian relation who thought it might make a good birthday present. I must have been about 12, I probably thought it looked like it’d make a good frisby, but against the odds, almost 40 years later, I still have it and it’s still playable.
Owning the record did make me cool at school for about 3 seconds when Bryan Adams became a household name in the UK with ‘Everything I Do (I Do It For You)’ in 1991, but then everyone remembered it was me, and rightly thought it must have been a fluke.
The song was written by Adams and his writing partner Jim Vallance and went through a number of changes, including the title, which was originally ‘Best Days Of Our Lives’ - the phrase appearing seven times in the first draft of the song, against the final title's two mentions.
Anyway, here’s the naughty bit, Adams claimed years later that the reference to ‘69’ was not a particular year, but more like…. the position, if you catch my drift. Vallance denied this later on but if you listen to the original, Adams clearly sings ‘me and my baby in a 69’ in the closing lines. Allegedly it was an off the cuff, adlib line in the original demo, but the line persisted all the way to the final cut.
The majority of the song is however about what it appears to be, the age-old dilemma of young musicians choosing between stardom and responsibility, and regardless of any obscured meaning, the track regularly still features in lists of the popular rock songs of all time. Clean cut Canadian hero indeed!
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